I’m in thefortunate position of owning my own home and some land without a mortgage (in a very affordable and somewhat remote area), and every week I hear more stories from friends about their struggles to get by.We’re all in our 30s, but I feelas if my stress levels are infinitely lower than theirs.
I’ve offered to have people stay rent-freeso they can savemoney for a house– and generally act as abackupplan for anyone who needs a place to stay longer term– or even put a mobile home on the land. However, I still feel as if I’m barely making a difference.
I know it sucks to need help and to ask for help, especially from friends.Needing help is looked down on and it’s hard to decondition that thinking.
DuringStorm Éowyn, I had no power for a week andhad to spend every day with a neighbour with solar panels. It sucked to need his help, even though he’s wonderful– so I get it.
Do you have any suggestions for how I could share the perks I enjoy with my friends and lighten their loads a little bit, without a sense of shame or failure accompanying that?
It’s wonderful that you want to help your friends. But I wonder if they’re less worried about feeling shame or failure, and more about the potential loss of satisfaction at making it on their own.
I went to psychotherapist Chris Mills with your letter. “Your wish to share your resources and good fortune is very touching. The offers you’re making sound heartfelt and generous, but when you say ‘I still feel as if I’m barely making a difference,’ I’m assuming you mean that these offers aren’t being taken up, at least not as much as you’d hoped or expected.”
If this is the case, Mills wondered if it was because you “might be misreading some of the signs. Your friends may well need support, but the chances are they gain a strong sense of solidarity by being surrounded by others in the same boat – peers who share similar circumstances and also, perhaps, similar aspirations for the future they’re working towards. What you’re offering may seem more like a form of escape from their lives than support.”
People don’t want to be a burden – they want to feel they haveachievedthings under their own steam. Satisfaction is the key to contentment. I tentatively wonder if you feel guilty about your house and land, and why that might be. Did you get what you have entirely through your own hard work, or have you had some lucky breaks? (Great if so.) I wonder if this may explain why you feel you want to share it.
Mills also said: “You may already be a huge help to them by being a sympathetic ear so they can offload some of their stresses on to you. They might feel more at ease doing this to you because you’re slightly removed from what they’re going through, and that their woes are less of a burden for you than friends going through similar. So they may feel a whole lot happier after speaking to you, but you feel awful because their stresses have been transferred to you.”
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In time, your friends may catch up with you, or their stress levels may lessen (or yours may increase, but I hope not!). Unless they’re actually homeless, they may also not want to take up offers of living on your land because it doesn’t suit them, either because of where it is located or for other reasons, and that’s their prerogative. Coming to yours may be too logistically complicated or could make them feel really vulnerable. Also, sometimes open-ended help can feel a bit too uncertain and taps into worries of being a burden. You mention the help your neighbour gave you and that was bookended, and I wonder if it may feel more containing to say to friends: “Come for two weeks for a rest.” It may not feel like much to you, but it could be really helpful to them.
Mills wondered if “a more effective way to help them could be to go and visit them rather than waiting for them to come and visit you? Having a helpful friend around for a few days who has time to help them with whatever they need could be a blessing.”
Also, have you asked them what help, if any, they want? Remember, if what you’re offering is not what they actually need then it may not be helpful at all, however well-meaning you are.
Every week, Annalisa Barbieri addresses a personal problem sent in by a reader. If you would like advice from Annalisa, please send your problem toask.annalisa@theguardian.com. Annalisa regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject toour terms and conditions.
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